Do you wish you could decode people? Do you want to know exactly what to say to your boss, your date, or your networking partner? You need to know how people work. As a human behavior investigator, Vanessa Van Edwards studies the hidden forces that drive our behavior patterns in her lab - and she's cracked the code. In
Captivate she shares a wealth of valuable shortcuts, systems, and behavior hacks for taking charge of their interactions at work, at home, and in any social situation.

5 out of 5 stars

Start here

By
tluria
on
05-03-17

Let It Go

Downsizing Your Way to a Richer, Happier Life

By:
Peter Walsh

Narrated by:
Gary Furlong

Length: 5 hrs and 48 mins

Unabridged

Overall

4 out of 5 stars
40

Performance

4.5 out of 5 stars
33

Story

4 out of 5 stars
33

Sorting through a lifetime's worth of accumulated possessions can be a daunting and stressful process that millions of Americans confront every year. The need to downsize often arises at a momentous life change, whether you're an empty nester or retiree selling your family home, a newlywed blending your households, or cleaning out your parents' property after they've moved into assisted living or passed away. Decluttering guru Peter Walsh knows the difficulty of downsizing firsthand.

3 out of 5 stars

Mainly about parents home and not your own

By
A Texan
on
06-04-17

Decluttering at the Speed of Life

Winning Your Never-Ending Battle with Stuff

By:
Dana K. White

Narrated by:
Dana K. White

Length: 6 hrs and 6 mins

Unabridged

Overall

5 out of 5 stars
94

Performance

4.5 out of 5 stars
87

Story

4.5 out of 5 stars
86

While the world seems to be in love with the idea of tiny houses and minimalism, real women with real families who are constantly growing and changing simply can't purge it all and start from nothing. Yet a home with too much stuff is a home that is difficult to maintain, so where do we begin? Add in paralyzing emotional attachments and constant life challenges, and it can feel almost impossible to make real decluttering progress.

5 out of 5 stars

Love this book!

By
Michelle
on
03-01-18

Click

The Magic of Instant Connections

By:
Rom Brafman,
Ori Brafman

Narrated by:
Rob Shapiro

Length: 4 hrs and 35 mins

Unabridged

Overall

4 out of 5 stars
174

Performance

4 out of 5 stars
82

Story

4 out of 5 stars
83

From the best-selling authors of
Sway,
Click is a fascinating psychological investigation of the forces behind what makes us click with certain people, or become fully immersed in whatever activity or situation we’re involved in.

5 out of 5 stars

Interpersonal Connections

By
Roy
on
06-20-10

Rise and Kill First

The Secret History of Israel's Targeted Assassinations

By:
Ronen Bergman

Narrated by:
Rob Shapiro

Length: 25 hrs and 57 mins

Unabridged

Overall

4.5 out of 5 stars
134

Performance

4.5 out of 5 stars
122

Story

4.5 out of 5 stars
121

The news-breaking inside account of Israel's state-sponsored assassination programs, from the man hailed by David Remnick as "arguably [Israel's] best investigative reporter."

4 out of 5 stars

Massacres names

By
Corina
on
02-27-18

Strategy

A History

By:
Lawrence Freedman

Narrated by:
Michael Butler Murray

Length: 32 hrs and 4 mins

Unabridged

Overall

4 out of 5 stars
442

Performance

4 out of 5 stars
387

Story

4 out of 5 stars
381

In
Strategy: A History, Sir Lawrence Freedman, one of the world's leading authorities on war and international politics, captures the vast history of strategic thinking, in a consistently engaging and insightful account of how strategy came to pervade every aspect of our lives.

5 out of 5 stars

Comprehensive 'Tour de Force' on Strategy

By
Logical Paradox
on
07-20-14

Captivate

The Science of Succeeding with People

By:
Vanessa Van Edwards

Narrated by:
Vanessa Van Edwards

Length: 7 hrs and 28 mins

Unabridged

Overall

4.5 out of 5 stars
1,270

Performance

4.5 out of 5 stars
1,144

Story

4.5 out of 5 stars
1,135

Do you wish you could decode people? Do you want to know exactly what to say to your boss, your date, or your networking partner? You need to know how people work. As a human behavior investigator, Vanessa Van Edwards studies the hidden forces that drive our behavior patterns in her lab - and she's cracked the code. In
Captivate she shares a wealth of valuable shortcuts, systems, and behavior hacks for taking charge of their interactions at work, at home, and in any social situation.

5 out of 5 stars

Start here

By
tluria
on
05-03-17

Let It Go

Downsizing Your Way to a Richer, Happier Life

By:
Peter Walsh

Narrated by:
Gary Furlong

Length: 5 hrs and 48 mins

Unabridged

Overall

4 out of 5 stars
40

Performance

4.5 out of 5 stars
33

Story

4 out of 5 stars
33

Sorting through a lifetime's worth of accumulated possessions can be a daunting and stressful process that millions of Americans confront every year. The need to downsize often arises at a momentous life change, whether you're an empty nester or retiree selling your family home, a newlywed blending your households, or cleaning out your parents' property after they've moved into assisted living or passed away. Decluttering guru Peter Walsh knows the difficulty of downsizing firsthand.

3 out of 5 stars

Mainly about parents home and not your own

By
A Texan
on
06-04-17

Decluttering at the Speed of Life

Winning Your Never-Ending Battle with Stuff

By:
Dana K. White

Narrated by:
Dana K. White

Length: 6 hrs and 6 mins

Unabridged

Overall

5 out of 5 stars
94

Performance

4.5 out of 5 stars
87

Story

4.5 out of 5 stars
86

While the world seems to be in love with the idea of tiny houses and minimalism, real women with real families who are constantly growing and changing simply can't purge it all and start from nothing. Yet a home with too much stuff is a home that is difficult to maintain, so where do we begin? Add in paralyzing emotional attachments and constant life challenges, and it can feel almost impossible to make real decluttering progress.

5 out of 5 stars

Love this book!

By
Michelle
on
03-01-18

Click

The Magic of Instant Connections

By:
Rom Brafman,
Ori Brafman

Narrated by:
Rob Shapiro

Length: 4 hrs and 35 mins

Unabridged

Overall

4 out of 5 stars
174

Performance

4 out of 5 stars
82

Story

4 out of 5 stars
83

From the best-selling authors of
Sway,
Click is a fascinating psychological investigation of the forces behind what makes us click with certain people, or become fully immersed in whatever activity or situation we’re involved in.

5 out of 5 stars

Interpersonal Connections

By
Roy
on
06-20-10

Rise and Kill First

The Secret History of Israel's Targeted Assassinations

By:
Ronen Bergman

Narrated by:
Rob Shapiro

Length: 25 hrs and 57 mins

Unabridged

Overall

4.5 out of 5 stars
134

Performance

4.5 out of 5 stars
122

Story

4.5 out of 5 stars
121

The news-breaking inside account of Israel's state-sponsored assassination programs, from the man hailed by David Remnick as "arguably [Israel's] best investigative reporter."

4 out of 5 stars

Massacres names

By
Corina
on
02-27-18

Strategy

A History

By:
Lawrence Freedman

Narrated by:
Michael Butler Murray

Length: 32 hrs and 4 mins

Unabridged

Overall

4 out of 5 stars
442

Performance

4 out of 5 stars
387

Story

4 out of 5 stars
381

In
Strategy: A History, Sir Lawrence Freedman, one of the world's leading authorities on war and international politics, captures the vast history of strategic thinking, in a consistently engaging and insightful account of how strategy came to pervade every aspect of our lives.

5 out of 5 stars

Comprehensive 'Tour de Force' on Strategy

By
Logical Paradox
on
07-20-14

The Tell-Tale Brain

A Neuroscientist's Quest for What Makes Us Human

By:
V. S. Ramachandran

Narrated by:
David Drummond

Length: 13 hrs and 2 mins

Unabridged

Overall

4.5 out of 5 stars
469

Performance

4.5 out of 5 stars
383

Story

4.5 out of 5 stars
375

V. S. Ramachandran is at the forefront of his field - so much so that Richard Dawkins dubbed him the "Marco Polo of neuroscience". Now, in a major new work, Ramachandran sets his sights on the mystery of human uniqueness. Taking us to the frontiers of neurology, he reveals what baffling and extreme case studies can teach us about normal brain function and how it evolved.

4 out of 5 stars

Great if you like understanding how brains work

By
Michael
on
12-25-11

Dangerous Personalities

An FBI Profiler Shows You How to Identify and Protect Yourself from Harmful People

By:
Joe Navarro,
Toni Sciarra Poynter

Narrated by:
Stephen Hoye

Length: 7 hrs and 58 mins

Unabridged

Overall

4 out of 5 stars
521

Performance

4 out of 5 stars
467

Story

4 out of 5 stars
470

In
Dangerous Personalities, former FBI profiler Joe Navarro shows listeners how to identify the four most common "dangerous personalities", and analyze how much of a threat each one can be: the Narcissist, the Predator, the Paranoid, and the Unstable Personality. Along the way, listeners learn how to protect themselves both immediately and long-term - as well as how to recover from the trauma of being close to such a destructive force.

3 out of 5 stars

A Bad Conscience

By
Mel
on
10-29-14

Unlimited Memory

How to Use Advanced Learning Strategies to Learn Faster, Remember More and Be More Productive

By:
Kevin Horsley

Narrated by:
Dan Culhane

Length: 2 hrs and 30 mins

Unabridged

Overall

4.5 out of 5 stars
730

Performance

4.5 out of 5 stars
621

Story

4.5 out of 5 stars
618

Do you ever feel like you're too busy, too stressed, or just too distracted to concentrate and get work done? In
Unlimited Memory you'll learn how the world's best memory masters get themselves to concentrate at will, anytime they want. When you can easily focus and concentrate on the task at hand and store and recall useful information, you can easily double your productivity and eliminate wasted time, stress, and mistakes at work. In this book you'll find all the tools, strategies, and techniques you need to improve your memory.

4 out of 5 stars

required visuals defeats audio books purpose

By
Eric C.
on
07-17-17

Unf--k Your Habitat

You're Better Than Your Mess

By:
Rachel Hoffman

Narrated by:
Emily Woo Zeller

Length: 4 hrs and 38 mins

Unabridged

Overall

4 out of 5 stars
110

Performance

4.5 out of 5 stars
96

Story

4 out of 5 stars
96

Finally, a housekeeping and organizational system developed for those of us who'd describe our current living situation as a "f--king mess" that we "really need to get around to fixing one day".
Unf--k Your Habitat is for anyone who has been left behind by traditional aspirational systems - the ones that ignore single people with full-time jobs, people without kids but living with roommates, and people with mental illnesses or physical limitations. Most organizational books are aimed at stay-at-home moms and people who seem to have unimaginable amounts of free time.

5 out of 5 stars

It Works

By
Jimmie Hammel
on
08-18-17

Payoff

The Hidden Logic That Shapes Our Motivations

By:
Dan Ariely

Narrated by:
Simon Jones

Length: 2 hrs and 37 mins

Unabridged

Overall

4 out of 5 stars
663

Performance

4.5 out of 5 stars
574

Story

4 out of 5 stars
566

Every day we work hard to motivate ourselves, the people we live with, the people who work for and do business with us. In this way much of what we do can be defined as being motivators. From the boardroom to the living room, our role as motivators is complex, and the more we try to motivate partners and children, friends and coworkers, the clearer it becomes that the story of motivation is far more intricate and fascinating than we've assumed.

4 out of 5 stars

Love Ariely, but rehash of old stories

By
Scott
on
12-16-16

The Code of Trust

An American Counterintelligence Expert's Five Rules to Lead and Succeed

By:
Robin Dreeke,
Cameron Stauth,
Joe Navarro - foreward

Narrated by:
Robin Dreeke

Length: 9 hrs and 27 mins

Unabridged

Overall

4.5 out of 5 stars
121

Performance

4.5 out of 5 stars
116

Story

4.5 out of 5 stars
116

The Code of Trust is based on the system Dreeke devised, tested, and implemented during years of fieldwork at the highest levels of national security. Applying his system first to himself, he rose up through federal law enforcement and then taught his system to law enforcement and military officials throughout the country, and later to private-sector clients. The Code of Trust has since elevated executives to leadership and changed the culture of entire companies, making them happier and more productive as morale soared.

5 out of 5 stars

A book that will change your life, if you want to!

By
Kirk Green
on
09-09-17

Laugh Tactics

Master Conversational Humor and Be Funny on Command

By:
Patrick King

Narrated by:
Joe Hempel

Length: 2 hrs and 40 mins

Unabridged

Overall

4 out of 5 stars
97

Performance

4 out of 5 stars
88

Story

4 out of 5 stars
85

Laugh Tactics is full of strategies that dissect, break down, and analyze all of the types of humor that you'll encounter in daily conversation - stuff you can really use with people you talk to. We're not all trying to become standup comedians, and this isn't a book about ha-ha jokes with setups and punch lines. Learn to simply make a better impression on people, put them at ease, charm them, and make them smile with you.

1 out of 5 stars

Failure isn't always funny ...

By
R.A.
on
04-28-17

Emergency

This Book Will Save Your Life

By:
Neil Strauss

Narrated by:
Neil Strauss

Length: 8 hrs and 20 mins

Abridged

Overall

4.5 out of 5 stars
543

Performance

4.5 out of 5 stars
401

Story

4.5 out of 5 stars
401

A tale of paranoid fantasies and crippling doubts, of shady lawyers and dangerous cult leaders, of billionaire gun nuts and survivalist superheroes, of weirdos, heroes, and ordinary citizens going off the grid. It's one man's story of a dangerous world - and how to stay alive in it. Before the next disaster strikes, you're going to want to read this book. And you'll want to do everything it suggests. Because tomorrow doesn't come with a guarantee....

3 out of 5 stars

Interesting but not great

By
Brad Andes
on
06-18-11

This Is How You Lose Her

By:
Junot Díaz

Narrated by:
Junot Díaz

Length: 5 hrs and 14 mins

Unabridged

Overall

4 out of 5 stars
1,121

Performance

4.5 out of 5 stars
980

Story

4 out of 5 stars
993

The stories in
This Is How You Lose Her, by turns hilarious and devastating, raucous and tender, lay bare the infinite longing and inevitable weaknesses of our all-too-human hearts. They capture the heat of new passion, the recklessness with which we betray what we most treasure, and the torture we go through - "the begging, the crawling over glass, the crying" - to try to mend what we've broken beyond repair. They recall the echoes that intimacy leaves behind, even where we thought we did not care.

3 out of 5 stars

For narration leave the prose for the pros

By
Roy Reiss
on
01-01-13

Mastermind

How to Think Like Sherlock Holmes

By:
Maria Konnikova

Narrated by:
Karen Saltus

Length: 10 hrs

Unabridged

Overall

3.5 out of 5 stars
235

Performance

4 out of 5 stars
206

Story

3.5 out of 5 stars
203

No fictional character is more renowned for his powers of thought and observation than Sherlock Holmes. But is his extraordinary intellect merely a gift of fiction, or can we learn to cultivate these abilities ourselves, to improve our lives at work and at home? We can, says psychologist and journalist Maria Konnikova, and in
Mastermind she shows us how. Beginning with the "brain attic", Konnikova unpacks the mental strategies that lead to clearer thinking and deeper insights.

1 out of 5 stars

Mindless: How to Regurgitate Useless Information

By
CC
on
02-12-13

The Hero with a Thousand Faces

By:
Joseph Campbell

Narrated by:
Arthur Morey,
John Lee,
Susan Denaker

Length: 14 hrs and 38 mins

Unabridged

Overall

4.5 out of 5 stars
981

Performance

4.5 out of 5 stars
892

Story

4.5 out of 5 stars
884

Since its release in 1949,
The Hero with a Thousand Faces has influenced millions of readers by combining the insights of modern psychology with Joseph Campbell's revolutionary understanding of comparative mythology. In this book, Campbell outlines the Hero's Journey, a universal motif of adventure and transformation that runs through virtually all of the world's mythic traditions. He also explores the Cosmogonic Cycle, the mythic pattern of world creation and destruction.

5 out of 5 stars

Meaningful and thought-provoking

By
Learner
on
02-09-16

How to Manage Your Home Without Losing Your Mind

Dealing with Your House's Dirty Little Secrets

By:
Dana K. White

Narrated by:
Dana K. White

Length: 6 hrs and 15 mins

Unabridged

Overall

5 out of 5 stars
582

Performance

5 out of 5 stars
516

Story

4.5 out of 5 stars
510

"The dirty little secret about most organizing advice is that it's written by organized people," says blogger, speaker, and decluttering expert Dana K. White. "But that's not how my brain works. I'm lost on page three." Dana blogs at
A Slob Comes Clean, chronicling her successes and failures with her self-described "deslobification process". In the beginning she used the name Nony (short for aNONYmous), because she was sharing her deep, dark slob secret. Now she has truly come clean - with not only her real name but the strategies she has developed.

5 out of 5 stars

A gold star plan for de-slobification

By
zuly
on
01-18-17

Publisher's Summary

For the last 10 years, psychologist Sam Gosling has been studying how people project (and protect) their inner selves. By exploring our private worlds (desks, bedrooms, even our clothes and our cars), he shows not only how we showcase our personalities in unexpected - and unplanned - ways, but also how we create personality in the first place, communicate it to others, and interpret the world around us.

Gosling, one of the field's most innovative researchers, dispatches teams of scientific snoops to poke around dorm rooms and offices, to see what can be learned about people simply from looking at their stuff.

What he has discovered is astonishing: when it comes to the most essential components of our personalities, the things we own and the way we arrange them often say more about us than even our most intimate conversations.

Story

Buy the hard copy

I also didn't listen to the wisdom of the other reviewers and purchased this audiobook. I made it through about half the book, but the endless recitation of tables finally got to be too much. I listen to audiobooks mostly while driving, and the highway department frowns on drivers reading charts and graphs while on the interstate, so I was stuck listening to the narrator drone on and on.... I think the book does have merit, but this was just not the kind of information I could enjoy having read to me.
My suggestion is to buy the physical book or, better yet, check it out from the library and skim through it to get pretty much everything this guy has to offer. You'll have to do some digging to glean the worthwhile facts, but it will be much less painful if you can flip through the actual book.

Very interesting

I bought the book because I am a salesman and snooping is an intricate part of my job. I expected to improve my snooping capabilities and I believe the book has just lived to my expectations.
The only thing that I found difficult, was to follow the book with the printed material, but this is true for any book that contains graphs and pictures. Anyway, with an extra effort I managed to combine the listening with the printed material. I truly recommend the book to anybody that has an interest of any kind in better understanding the human behaviour.

Mildly interesting

This book is poorly written with academic language mixed up with popular language. It tells you how people fit in the O.C.E.A.N. personality types based on what's in their rooms. That's ok, but I would have liked a more specific description of typical objects found in homes and their general symbolic meaning. I think this book missed the mark.

Good But Subjective

Good book overall that I would recommend to those who are already well read on the overall subject of personality types, and perhaps to a lesser degree, behavioral economics.

The main drawbacks are the author’s inability or refusal to address his own research with an eye towards being truly objective. He seems to value his own personality traits over all others, placing open-mindedness at a pinnacle with conscientious people being necessary for landing planes and generally keeping things for safe for the fun loving, right minded people like himself, but otherwise they’re given short shrift as boring, poorly read, not smiling enough and being - and this is the worst part - prone to voting Republican.

There are obvious problems with his sample populations since only certain groups of people are even going to be open to allowing their bedrooms to be studied by strangers. Throw in that most of the studies took place in the San Francisco Bay area, and we come to the realization that he has taken his data from a paper thin slice of the population and extrapolated them across humanity at large.

So the larger abstractions that can be taken away from the book are interesting and will prove of some value to the experienced people watcher, but the details get muddied up with the author’s subjective views that both distract from the book and cast doubt on his judgment as a researcher.

I should have listened to an earlier review

This may very well be a good print book but making at audio book by just reading the endless tables, lists and surveys just doesn't work. The author is on a bit of a ego trip, but I could put up with that because parts of the book were really interesting, but I had to give up after a while. An earlier review said essentially that same thing, but I didn't listen!

After this you will go clean your bedroom!

Yes. I've always wondered why my office looks so neat and tidy, and my home so... NOT. If you read this book, you will gain many clues about how the way you arrange your stuff reflects you.

What was one of the most memorable moments of Snoop?

Near the end of the book, the author talks about how having photos of your family arranged behind your desk shows that you feel it is important to present yourself to others as being part of a family. This was enlightening to me, since I do have this arrangement.

Which character – as performed by David Drummond – was your favorite?

Not relevant - non-fiction book.

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

No, I found that it was easy to pick up in sections.

Any additional comments?

I think I would have preferred a printed version. There are many tables of data, and that doesn't really translate well to an audible edition.

Fun and interesting listening

Close observation about our things is more revealing than you'd expect. You'll want a version of this book that reads like a dream interpretation, but remember that everything needs to be seen in context.